Thursday, March 18, 2010

Although the Council has been included and involved in this process, the current draft of these standards raises some concerns. Although some elements of the current draft are consistent with NCTM’s positions—particularly, those articulated in the Council’s Standards publications—other elements need further development and interpretation. NCTM’s public comments on the current draft will be posted soon on the NCTM Web site. Throughout this process NCTM has made the following points:

A challenging and coherent curriculum, focused in scope and deep in meaning, is a critically important step in learning mathematics with understanding.

NCTM’s official positions, particularly as delineated in the Council’s landmark Standards publications, address much of the content that is included in the Common Core Standards. These positions find clearest expression in NCTM’s Guiding Principles for Mathematics Curriculum and Assessment, Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, Focus in High School Mathematics: Reasoning and Sense Making, andCurriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics: A Quest for Coherence.

Problem solving, reasoning and sense making, connections within mathematics and to other contexts, mathematical representations, communication, and the use of technology are essential elements of school mathematics and need to be represented and well integrated in the Common Core Standards.